Marketing to Real Estate Agents

I'm very sorry but I don't see much relevance of your site "more listings dot com" to the real estate market. Maybe that is your problem?

I am also interested in learning additional ways to reach real estate agents in my city. Anyone know the best method for this?

Hmmm, First I could see your site struggling to convert visitors.


I mean it is nice to look at for sure but it could do with a clear message, a precise offer which gives the real estate agent an obvious benefit.


Nothing on the page is coming out at me and saying "Get 25% more listings without wearing holes in your shoes door knocking, wasting money on flyers and cold calling"


What are you offering?


In fact your optin is for a free training course right? But that is in smallish yellow print I've really got to dig around the site to figure out what you do.


What is the big benefit...faster and easier are the most compelling words on the page.


As an agent do I really care about fun or thrilling...maybe...but I'm guessing they want to make money, they want to list better quality homes, they want to sell those faster, they are sick of spending all those sunny weekends stuck at open homes showing all the curious neighbors around a home they won't buy.


I'm not trying to pick holes in anything you're doing here I'm just putting on my salesman hat here and trying to get you to think about it from the point of view of a tired, busy agent who landed on your site with no patience, no trust for you and in about 2 seconds I'm gone....


Best way to sell to an agent (or anyone) is to tell them exactly what they want to hear, itch that scratch that is bugging them and pretty much tell them to take action right now!



And as Andrew said this is a group that respond extremely well to face to face chats and even phones...that's how they make their living after all.




I'll take off the copywriting hat now.


If you've got a good offer and a good course then I'd consider actually approaching the forum owners and trying to make a deal or find someone who has a successful product in that market and see if you can't JV.


Just start talking to the people that can reach these guys.


I'd look at that avenue and also direct mail offer sending them to your course, start calling some agencies.


In fact it may be worth doing a couple of free workshops at an office or two just to get the name out there...old school networking. Just keep driving them back to your site.


At the end of the day your forum posts, your site, any marketing and sales you do will still need to have a strong sales message.




Now doesn't have to be a long copy full on 20 page sales pitch but somewhere you need those classic sales elements.


Cheers,

Jonathan

"More easily"???? Get English.

Font is awful, colors are hard to see, and you only imply it's for
realtors...tell them who it's for!

You need to have more "What's in it for me" to get them to sign up.
Free demo or something like that.

Hi Christine,

Just dropped back in to check out the site and it looks so different.

It is a lot clearer and no squinting or digging around required to find your course and why that lead form is there...or why the heck I'm there!

Nicely done and I hope you see a big change in your success with that site. Apply similar principles to all your advertising and you'll be smiling.

To really nail it keep finding ways to make the message stronger or clearer and highlight the benefits...then test different things. I'm not saying it isn't already there but you never know for sure without testing.

But seriously good job on taking some advice, some of it reasonably blunt, and getting to work. A lot of people just spit the dummy and take it personally and when it comes to playing this game your attitude gets you going places.

Best of luck,

Jonathan

I have some real estate clients and all I did was email them. They are some of the best clients for offline consulting. Just go to google and type in "your city realtor" then click on "more results near your city" in the local business listings. I have a feeling that the "door to door" method is not something most people would be willing to do. I would resort to robbing banks before I did that...

Real estate agents are more likely to have an an actual email address listed than many other types of businesses. I normally skip those that only offer a form.

Offer something free that has value and tells them how to get more traffic or business. And don't send as an attachment but as a link even if it is a PDF. (yoursite.com/report.pdf)

Figure 50 to 100 emails for one new client if you have a strong offer and can answer questions to their satisfacton. Leave a phone number but also invite them to "write back".

Tom

I have a real estate agent hounding me for months, for me to do his marketing. He wants, to do a performance based/profit system and he has been turned down.

If you want to work these people, give them a taste of what you can do for them by... seeing them in them in person and giving them a free consultation. If they bite, then you got a client, if they bark..walk away and seek a new one that might work with you.

You have to show them some proof, to get their business. Send them a physical letter that, looks like a friend you'd send to a friend. In that letter tell them you are giving away a free 30 min-1 hour consultation.

After they take you up on your offer, go to their office and show they the greatness you posses, and then make a deal with them that pays you good money.

These people need marketing, they are lost in the offline world and online is greek to them. You can use your online skills to w-o-w him/her.

Good luck!

Your "Goodie" offer probably doesn't resonate with them. They
don't want to spend their time reading your report and they
don't want to get email from you.

Put yourself in your prospect's shoes.

Some niches are much harder to convert visitors into email
leads. Some are easy. It doesn't mean the hard to crack
ones aren't worth competing in, because the leads may
have higher value because they are subscribed to fewer
competitor lists.

If you go on Twitter every 20th person who follows you
is a "real estate investor" looking to "network" or be "friends".

There's a lot of noise in the real estate niches. The people
in it think they are pretty smart. They may be hurting
but they'll blame the economy, not their own passe skill sets.

You'd do well to put together some real serious direct
mail package, perhaps a self-mailer with a CD. Expensive,
still way cheaper than Fedexing, but gets attention.
Restaurant marketer Rory Fatt does great mailings if
you're looking for examples.

As Cavanaugh says though, you can get a lot farther, faster
by just dropping in for a chat. You'll not only get to assess
who has money to be your customer, but what kinds of
problems real estate people are frustrated by in your local
market and the specific language they are using to describe
their problems - which can be regurgitated back at them
in your copy and teleseminar scripts.

###

I went back and found your site.... it's pretty dull. Your
copy lacks specificity and appears to make unfounded
promises of easy success. Pure hype.

Hi Christine,

You may want to consider building a town portal BUT for real estate only. You can get something ranked locally in a couple of days!

What you do is open up a CPA account with someone like Commission Junction and look for an offer from maybe ReMax, Century 21, etc. Then make your portal header this CPA offer. You can then tell the local realtors "Hey, I have xxx on my site advertising. We need to talk"

The trick is you may not necessarily be after the advertising on your portal. You just use the portal to gain credibility to the real estate agent that you're for real. I'm assuming you're trying to sell your offline services to realtors?

You're really just trying to get realtors to talk to you. What's your story? Your story is this local portal which in theory, could be a simple Wordpress blog for starters.

Good luck!

Dennis

I think there might be an inherent problem with the crowd you are trying to target.

I have a little knowledge in this subject because my dad has been a real estate agent for over 25 years.

Most real estate agents are very face-to-face, hands on. Showing clients around, writing contracts, home inspections... all very physical, first-person acts. You may find that real estate agents don't jump into signing up for an online service unless they have a local person they know to identify it with.

You wanna know how to market to Realtors?

Study these two guys:

Todd Bates & Tom Ferry

Here's my two cents.

You are targeting real estate agents but your site is targeting sales professionals.

There is nothing that makes you stand out above the competition, and there is a LOT of competition in that niche.

Your site looks generic, plain and simple. This is a friends real estate site, Layton Homes for Sale | Joe Doxey. His site is up to date, user friendly and has a lot of bells and whistles. Your site does not. If I am a real estate agent with this website looking at yours, I am going to think that you are behind the times...

I don't mean to be overly critical. This is just what came to my mind as I looked at your site. I hope that you can take it as constructive criticism. We would love to hear of any changes that you make that actually increase your sells.